Toldos - Digging Wells - Seeing Beneath the Surface

2:52 And there was no dry land. But then, Hakadosh Baruch Hu gathered all the water into one place, so that the dry land could appear. And the question is, why didn't Hakadosh Baruch Hu just create the world like it is today? Why does Hakadosh Baruch Hu need to create the world first that there's water and then there's dry land? Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted; he could have just said, 'Let there be water and let there be dry land.' Why do we have to go through this process? And the last question, which also appears to be not connected at all. Tells us about the creation of man. Listen what Rashi says. Le'in yam bryaso shel Adam When it comes to the matter of the creation of man Heilah hotahom. First Hashem raised the waters from the depth V'hishke ananim And the clouds began to bear water as well.

3:51 Lishro sa'afar and they saturated the soil, getting the soil all wet. V'nivra adam kegabal ze And man was created like someone who needs dough. Shano se'namayim, he puts water in the flour. Afterwards, you need the dough. Afkan here too. V'hishke va'acher kach vayitzer. First, Hashem baruch Hu watered, and then He formed. So once again, we see this idea that Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't just snap his fingers and make man. Creating man is a process. And it's a process like making challah. First, you put the water into the dough, and then you knead the dough. Hakadosh Baruch Hu puts water into the ground, and then he kneaded the ground with the water in it until it became a person. Why does Hakadosh Baruch Hu have to do that? What's the inner message of all of these things? The Medrash says, I think we've said this a bunch of times already this year.

4:57 What does Hashem desire? Why are we here in this world? Easy answer. Harder answer. We might be here to serve Him, but why did He create us? That's the classic answer of the Ramchal. Tonight we're going to give a different answer based on the Medrash. Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a dwelling place in the world down below. That's what the Medrash says, popularized in Tanya by the Baalat Tanya. This is the Hasidic answer that Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a dwelling place down in this world. He wants our world to be a more godly place. And as currently constructed, our world is not a place where God feels comfortable. Hang on one second, let me get through this. Why does he want that? Because He desires it. We don't ask why for desires. We only ask why when it comes to things that are rational.

6:03 We only ask why when it comes to things that are for a purpose. For example. If a person says, "I'm going to drive to Tzfat." So then you can ask a question: 'Why are you driving to Tzfat? What's in Tzfat? What's the goal of driving to Tzfat?' Hakadosh Baruch Hu does not need to do things for a reason because there's nothing outside of Himself that motivates Him to do anything. Hakadosh Baruch Hu does because He is. It's what He desires. If God had a reason, that would mean there's a reason outside of himself that's motivating him to do something. And that's not a God. A God, by its definition, is something that's perfect, something that exists beyond reason. So Hashem is a desire; He wants us to make the world a more godly place. The problem is this: when we look at it We say to ourselves How can I?

7:06 A coarse, lowly, physical person makes a coarse, lowly, physical world into a godly place. If you want things to go together You need to be able to see that they're the same species. It's like imagine a silly example. Imagine you're trying to complete a puzzle. And there's one puzzle piece missing And now let's say it's a 1500 piece puzzle. Everyone remembers when we were doing puzzles during COVID. Did you do that? My family liked puzzles and diamond art. They had all these different things that they did. So 1500 pieces. Imagine there's one piece missing in the box. How frustrating is that? That's an existential crisis. If you have this entire thing and then there's that one piece, all you notice is the one piece that's missing. So let's say you say to yourself, "I want to complete the puzzle." So you take play doh You roll it out real thin and shape it exactly in that shape.

8:12 And you put it in. Have you completed the puzzle? Of course not. Really, that shape is filled up. But it's not what we would call in Hebrew min beminu. It's not of the same species, right? If you want two things to go together, it needs to be of the same species. If I take water, for example, from one of these cups and I pour it into the other cup, you can't tell the difference anymore because this water merged with this water because they're of the same species. But if I took oil and water and I tried to put them together It wouldn't mix. There's a question at the core of all of creation. Hashem, you want me to make this world into a godly place. This world is not a godly place. It's not of a godly nature. So how can I, a human being, come and say I'm going to make the world something which it isn't?

9:08 A more important way of thinking about this is how men and women can get married in the world. Clearly, we are not the same species. And that's why marriage involves so much tension. Because the way you think about is, I'm a man, or the way you think about is, you're a woman. Then you say, I'm going to be married to a man. We don't have anything in common. They like things that I am not interested in. Men have emotional needs that women do not understand. For example There was one young lady in this room. It doesn't matter who. But when confronted with the idea that men like space, that men want to go into their caves She said, "No." Doesn't matter who it is. She said, "No." He's not allowed to go into a cave. He could spend time on his own time. But if he's with me, then he needs to be with me.

10:21 And she could not understand that. I want you to know that men. Do not understand your needs any better Because when guys come to me and they go, Rebbe, I'm not sure what she wants. My wife came home. And she said to me that her boss is driving her crazy. And that her boss keeps telling her that she needs to do this amount of work when only she's getting paid to do this amount of work. So I told her what to do. I told her to tell your boss that you're not willing to do that. And then she got upset at me. And I don't understand the problem. I told her what to do. So I said to this young man Your wife did not want you to tell her what to do. He goes, "Yes, she did. She asked me what I should do."

11:09 I said, "I know. I know she said those words. I know the words 'What should I do' came out of her mouth. But she wasn't asking what she should do. He's like, 'What was she asking for?' I said validation. He said I don't get it. I said this is what your wife wants. And he could not understand this. She wants you to say Wow, that sounds really hard. He's like, "Why would she want me to say that? If I went to a guy and said to a guy 'Yeah, my boss is driving me crazy. He's asking me to do all these things that are not my job,' and he goes, 'Yeah, that sounds really hard,' I would be like, 'No, just tell me what to do because I got to figure this out. I got to solve this problem.'" And women will say to their husbands, "Why do you have to solve everything for me? I'm not an idiot. I know how to solve problems. I just want you to listen to me."

12:03 "Why does she want me to listen to her?" And it's no different than the girl who couldn't understand why guys want time in a cave by themselves. These are two different species. They're two different species. And so people are asking the question, "How am I supposed to get married?" And the answer is because while you may have two different external appearances, marriage is something that happens at the level of the soul. It's not you're a male He's a you're a female. I got to calibrate for female audience. It's not you're a female, he's a male. It's you're a female soul. And he's a male soul. The connection that happens in any relationship is a soul to soul relationship. It's not a body relationship. It's a soul relationship. And the reason why so many people today are struggling in marriage is because they're trying to relate to the other person on a physical level. I'll explain to you what I mean.

13:12 A guy comes to me and he says to me, Rebbe, how am I supposed to talk to God? I can't see him. I said, it's just the opposite. How are you supposed to talk to someone when you can see them? Don't you get distracted by what you see? He said, "I don't understand." I said, "You're not talking to me, the physical being, right? That's not who you're talking to. When I'm talking to you right now, I'm not talking to you, the physical being, and you know this because if, Chassvah Shalom, you lost a limb" You'd still be you, right? So when two people are talking to each other, who's talking to each other? It's one soul communicating with another soul. And sometimes we get distracted, and this is where modesty comes in. Sometimes we get distracted by the physical appearance of the other person. Which is why the physical appearance can change.

14:00 When you make a soul-to-soul relationship with someone Their physical appearance might change. Where you're talking to someone and initially you're like, nope, and then a couple weeks later you're like, maybe? And then a couple weeks later, you're like, absolutely. What changed? What changed? The soul-to-soul relationship can remove the veil of the physical veneer. It removes the physicality because the soul-to-soul relationship is so much more intimate. It's so much more unified. It's one species. Which is why, of course, it goes without saying that a man and a woman cannot get married. But two souls, one of whom is male and one of whom is female, can become this new thing called husband and wife. But the only reason they can do that is because the initial stage is, of course, we're one species. I'm a soul and you're a soul. I'm a soul that expresses myself in one way. You're a soul that expresses itself in another way. Does that make sense?

15:08 So far, so good. You coming with me on this? We say there. So God says Make the world a dwelling place for me. We say, "How?" God says, and listen carefully now. Don't fall for the trap of the physical world. Don't look at the physical world and think that it's physical. Really, what's underneath the surface? What's underneath the surface of the physical world is godliness, not physicality. So when we look at the world and we say, God, how am I supposed to make the world a spiritual place when the world is so physical? And I'll bring you a proof. This morning This morning the world got up, so to speak, and said I'm physical. I'm cruel. A boy died this morning. That's wrong. A boy was murdered this morning. He didn't die. He wasn't killed. He was murdered because he was a Jew. Not because he was in Israel Because he was a Jew. It's not anti-Zionism. It's anti-Semitism. Don't fall for that trap.

16:29 A 15-year-old person was murdered this morning. God, you want me to make this world into a godly place? This is a coarse, physical, lowly existence. Look what happens all over the place. People are awful. People are terrible. Look at the divorce rate. Look at people that are abused in this world. Look at people that are murdered in this world. Look at the tyranny of this world. You want me to make this world into a godly place, girls? This is not a kitschy concept. This is serious business. We're talking about the core of reality. Are we physical? Or are we spiritual? Who are we really? And when a person looks at this world with any sense of seycha You look at the world and you say, "There's nothing godly about this world." This was godly. COVID was godly. Look what happened in COVID. Look at the profiteering that happened in COVID.

17:29 I remember when COVID first started. There was a young man. It doesn't matter who he is. He was a young man that I heard about. That right away he shmecked. He saw it coming. Very clever boy. So he heard this epidemic was traveling. So he ordered a hundred thousand masks. And then when COVID came to America Because masks were scarce He hiked up the prices and he made a fortune selling masks. And so guys in yeshiva came to me and they said, Rebbe, did you hear about this guy? He made a fortune selling masks. The only thing I could think about was Really? Like that's what you guys are thinking about right now? People are literally dying. People are scared. People are staying home. Could you imagine somebody sitting there and thinking How can I make money on this? That's an awful way of looking at the world.

18:29 Now it happens to be he made a lot of money. But talk about capitalizing on people's tragedies. You want me to make the world into a godly place? The world is a coarse, physical, lowly place. Comes along Hashem and He says, "No, it's not." You got caught in the trap. You looked at the physical, but you didn't look at what was beyond the physical. I'll give you a sad example of this. Was a guy who came to yeshiva last year to check out Mevaseret. And he said he was really excited to come to Mivaseret, but then heard about certain guys that were coming, and he was seriously considering changing his mind. And I said, why? I heard that we have awesome guys coming next year. He said, I heard there's awesome guys coming next year also, but there's a group of guys coming that I'm really concerned about. If they come, I really don't think I could come.

19:28 I said why. He said, for four years I've been a ghost. So what do you mean you've been a ghost? He said, for four years I walked down the high school hallways. And this chevra, guys that I've been with since ninth grade They act like I don't exist. He said, if I'm walking in the hallway this way and these five guys are walking this way, they don't nod and say hello, they don't look at me. I'm a ghost. I don't exist. My heart was breaking as he was telling me this. I couldn't imagine the pain of literally not being gairis, somebody else's existence. He said, 'I'm not willing to do that next year. I'm coming to Eretz Yisrael. I want to be in a place, and I heard Mevaseret is this type of place, which is why it's concerning to me that this group of boys is talking about coming.' He said, 'I heard in Mevaseret that when you walk down the hallways, you have friends, and the people will smile at you and talk to you.'

20:25 He said, "But these guys, they're not Mevaseret guys" And in the end, that group didn't come And in the end, this boy did come. And I see that when he walks down the hall, people are smiling at him. But why were these? Why was this group of guys? Why were they not smiling at him? So I said, why? Why aren't they like guyras your existence? I have nothing in common with them. I said, what do you mean? He goes, well I'm not a ball player. I'm not a hockey player. I'm a little bit more academic. I'm a little bit nerdier And like these guys, they have their clique and they're living within their clique. I'd be nice to them, I'd be happy to be friends with them. They just act like I don't exist. These guys looked at a person and they said, "I can tell you who you are. You are this, this, and this."

21:14 Physical things about a person, not things that define him. And chaval, I want you to know, I've gotten to know this boy a little bit, and he's a gem. He's an unbelievable guy. He's going to be a great husband and a great father. And he would have been a great friend. He would have been loyal. He would have listened. He would have been there for them. But they looked at the external and they said, "Yeah, but we need to be because of our own impoverished mentality. We need to be considered cool. We would never hang out with a guy like that." The truth of the matter is, the coolest guys are the ones that are willing to hang out with anybody. The ones that actually like legitimately don't care. I don't know. He's just a good guy. Same with girls. But sometimes, not always, girls can be very mean. And sometimes I've learned this.

22:09 Because when a guy is not nice to another guy, they punch each other. Or if they're Jewish, they push each other. But sometimes I've heard from some girls over the years that sometimes, I'm not saying here, but somewhere maybe, now if you know what I'm saying, I'm just saying if you know what I'm saying. Sometimes there's this thing that people do where they just decide she's not with us anymore. And all of a sudden, this girl is in the breeze, just swinging there. Why? What did she do that she doesn't deserve to sit down in that bed in that room and just hang out with people? If we knew that we were min bimino, if we knew that this was our species, this was our person We would never dare walk by them without acknowledging their existence. Because we would lose that. We would be like, that's a person. I could be. I could know another person. Doesn't say you have to be best friends with everybody, but there's a godliness to every single person.

23:03 Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, when I created the world, first I made the water. The water represents the godliness. First I made the water. The whole world was godly, and then I covered up the godliness because, of course, you can't make a physical world into a godly place, but you can make a godly world into a godly place. You just have to remove the physical. And that's called digging wells. Digging wells means that you're a person who sees beneath the surface. Digging wells means you're a person who, when you look out at another person, you don't see them for the things that they do. You see who they really are. That's why the greatest tzaddikim never fall for the person. They never fall for the trap of defining someone by their lowest moments. The biggest tzaddikim when the biggest rasha comes to the biggest tzaddik is so happy to see him.

23:55 Why, I, Rebbe, this guy was just mechal Shabbos. This guy just did the biggest avera in the entire world. And the Rebbe says, "What are you talking about?" What are you talking about? What avera? What are you talking about? As a ma'isa I don't want to say which tzaddik it was because it's not 100% clear to me. I don't remember the story exactly. But after the Holocaust, there was a big tzaddik who came to New York and he came to Manhattan. And he wanted to make a minion. And there was this guy walking through the streets, and he was a Jew, and it was Friday night. And they said to him, "Will you come in to be a part of our minion?" And it was known that this guy wasn't the proudest guy in the world. And they brought him in, and he said, 'I'm only going to come in if I can be the chazan.' And they said, 'Okay.' He came in, and he was the chazan. Afterwards, one of the chassidim went over to the rebbe and he said, 'You know, this guy, rebbe, he's a mechal shabbos.' The Rebbe says, 'I don't know what you're talking about. You're wrong. I don't believe you. He's not mechal Shabbos.' The Rebbe's son came to him and said, 'Rebbe, how could we allow this guy to be the shliach tzibur? He's mechal Shabbos.' The Rebbe said, 'I don't believe you. He's not mechal Shabbos.'

25:07 Anyway, the guy kept coming week after week, but he would walk in and he would say, "I'm only coming if I can daven for the yamod." And the Rebbe said, "So you'll daven for the yamod." And one time he didn't come And the Rebbe said to his son, "Go find him." And he went out on Shabbos and he found him in Central Park. He was sitting there smoking a cigarette on Shabbos. The guy came back. And he said to the Rebbe He said, "The son came back. He said to the Rebbe, Rebbe, I'm telling you now. I just saw this guy being mechal Shabbos before Hesia, sitting in the park smoking a cigarette." And the Rebbe looked at him and he said to him It's not true. You didn't see him. "All you saw was the Nazi. You didn't see him. All you saw was the Nazi." The son couldn't understand what he was saying. The rebbe eventually passed away. The guy never came back to shul.

25:57 Many years later, the rebbe's son, who is now rebbe himself This guy comes into him. He's got a long beard, long pesh. He's an older man. And he says to the rebbe's son "Do you remember me?" He goes, "No, I'm sorry, I don't remember you." He goes, "Really, you don't remember me?" He goes, "I'm sorry, I don't remember you. He said, "Don't you remember that I used to come to your shul?" And I used to say I'm only coming in if I could daven for the Omer on Friday nights. He says, "Oh my gosh, I remember you." And now all of a sudden he's a beard, he's a long beard, and he's pious, and he's like a totally different person. So he said, 'After the Holocaust, I went through a tremendously challenging time in my life, asking myself, do I really want to be this person? I don't know if you know this, but I wasn't really keeping Shabbos 100%. But in the end, I did tshuva and I decided I'm a yid. And I changed my ways, and I did tshuva. And Baruch Hashem, I've raised a beautiful family.'

26:52 And then the Rebbe's son understood what the Rebbe had understood all those years before. Don't judge a book by its cover. There's a godly person underneath. How dare we judge a person by their lowest actions? Who says that defines them? A person, a yid, has to be someone who digs wells. Who says I believe that under all that physical surface, even though I can't see it, I know there's a godly person in there. And halavai, we would know that about ourselves. The most criminal thing in the world is that we don't have people constantly reminding us You're not your lowest actions, you're not your physical self, you have something godly underneath you. Which is why Rashi tells us, how was man created? Man, Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't just snap his fingers. There was a physical earth. And Hashem said, "Physical earth, we can't make man out of."

27:44 The first thing we need to do is introduce the water. We need to introduce the godliness. We bring the godliness from below and from above until the dirt is saturated with water. And then Hakadosh Baruch Hu kneads it like dough and He puts it together. Now we are this unique amalgamation of physical and spiritual, but in our core, we're spiritual. A person is responsible to see themselves and say, 'I am not my lowest action.' But digging wells is an act of faith. Because when Yitzchak Avinu digs wells He has no idea if there's water underneath. Today, if you were going to dig a well, what would you do? You'd bring an MRI machine and take a scan of the earth to see where the water runs underneath. And then you dig a well in that place. But they didn't have the modern technology. All they had was emuna.

28:39 And so Yitzchak comes and he says. I believe there's godliness everywhere. I'm gonna dig wells. Underneath the surface, there's always water. It's just a question of how far down you're willing to go. And girls digging wells is an act of war. Avram Avinu, the Plishtim come and they say we don't want you to bring godliness into the world. So they stuff up his wells. They make sure that the godliness of Avram Avinu can't come out. Yitzchak says I'm gonna dig those wells again. And I'm going to dig new wells, and there were fights over the new wells. Because if you go to the world and you say to the world, 'No, you're not physical. I see beneath you. I see who you really are.' It's a mochama because the physical world says, "No, I'm physical." And we have to be able to see beyond. We have to be able to say to somebody, "I believe that pinto liyid is inside of you, and you have no idea when it's going to come out."

29:33 My closest friend in the world doesn't keep Shabbos. And he doesn't keep kosher. And he would eat pork on Yom Kippur, and he wouldn't bat an eye. And I love him. And we've been friends since I was 19 years old. I knew him before that. We became friends at 19 and we were chavrusas. And in the summers, we would wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning to learn. He has a tough life. He had a tough childhood. And he got hurt. And he made a decision that he didn't want to keep Shabbos anymore, and he didn't want to keep kosher anymore, and he dropped out of yeshiva. And today he lives in the Czech Republic with his German girlfriend, and he doesn't believe in marriage, and he doesn't believe in having children, and he doesn't believe in God, and he doesn't believe in anything.

30:30 But he's my friend, and I'm not going to stop being friends with him just because he has a different value system. And I'm not being friends with him in order to bring him back to Yiddishkeit. I believe there's godliness there, and I believe that it'll come up eventually. I'm just here along for the journey. And his father died. His father lived here in Israel. And he didn't come in for the funeral because it's just physical stuff. It's just physical matter, so he didn't make it in time for the funeral. But his brother. Is a Charedi Rav who lives in Eshelayim So he came to sit shiva with his brother. But obviously he's not sitting shiva. So I went to pay a shiva call. I drove to Eshelayim. I came to this apartment. Tiny little Charedi apartment in Matzdorf And there's my good friend. He's sitting next to his brother, and I'm sitting there making the regular shiva call.

31:31 And then my friend turns to me and goes, "You want to get out of here? I gotta get out of here." Get me out of here. So I said, "Where do you want to go?" You're sitting shiva, man. So he said, "Can we go get a burger?" " So I'm like in my head thinking Is this Masayel Devar Avirah? Should I say yes? Should I say no? And then I realized he's going to get a burger whether I'm there with him or not. So I may as well get a burger with him. So we went We went to Har Chutzvim to that burger place. We sat down. And he's talking about his dad. He's talking about his life. I'm just listening because I'm his friend and I love him. And then out of nowhere Out of nowhere He looks at me and he says "It wouldn't be so hard for me to do tshuva," I said.

32:23 " He goes, "Yeah. I've not hurt anyone. I've only done Averus ben Adam la Malchum. I've only done Averus towards God. I've not hurt people. Wouldn't be hard for me to do tshuva. And then it was just silent. We were eating our burgers. And then he just started talking about something else. I saw it. A lot of people looked at him and said, "He doesn't wear a yarmulke, and he doesn't keep Shabbos, and he doesn't keep kosher, and he lives with his German girlfriend." But I'm telling you. There's water underneath. This story is not yet over. For a moment His true self came up. For a moment His soul waged war on his physical body, and his soul said, "I am a Jew." And maybe I could do tshuva. " And then, like I told you, girls, it's a war. The physical self pushed it right back down.

33:25 But the story is not over. I don't know if he'll do tshuva in 10 years or 20 years or 30 years or 40 years. But I'm telling you, it's going to happen. We have to believe in people. We have to believe there's godliness in every single one of us, and we have to tell the people around us that there's godliness in them. And if there's a girl in Toma Devora who's feeling lonely Who's feeling like nobody cares about her, that's not her failure. That's ours. If there's a girl here that feels like she doesn't belong, that's not her failure. That's ours. It means that we haven't seen her godliness. We haven't figured out how to draw her close. We haven't figured out how to bring her in. We are responsible, every one of us, to be diggers of wells. To have faith that every single one of us is a godly soul yearning to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.